Serendipitous Kleptomania
by akai kinoko
Summary: Sakura gets hypnotized by a box of cool mint tablets. Kakashi seems to be the reason why, but how come Genma acts like he's the one? Who's who?


**Author's notes:**

here is the revised version of the story… it's more organized now, containing all the proper paragraph divisions. The first one I uploaded was a draft… so it looked a bit fussy… my apologies.

trivia: part of it is based from a true story. (xx)v

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**Serendipitous Kleptomania**

_**akai kinoko**_

"Sensei, Sasuke-kun, Naruto, I'll be at aisle 27," Sakura chirped as she pushed the grocery cart towards the said aisle. But nobody seemed to hear her as the three males had already dashed off to the different shelves to get the products they need…

_/Or the products they fancy. This will be another grueling shopping day/ _Inner Sakura groaned.

Indeed, every time they went grocery shopping, the males would get more than they could afford and Sakura had to single-handedly reason out (or worse, debate with) the three of them to return 3/4 of what they took from the shelves and put into the carts. Shinobis do not earn enough money to sustain a ludicrous lifestyle (in fact, fancy living is not encouraged to warriors whose primary duty is to protect the ones in need), so Sakura had to stick to a budget even if they were shopping on credit. And she had to painstakingly remind the boys of this fact, each time they were out to buy something.

_/They never seem to remember anything we say…/_

"Shut up, inner mind. I'm trying to recall the things we need. Kaka-sensei took the shopping list with him so I can't--" Sakura's monologue was cut-off as she noticed people giving her strange looks.

_/I told you, don't use your voice when speaking to me. People have this strange idea that one is crazy when she talks to herself. Just look at their pathetic stares and listen to their foolish whispers. As if they haven't done anything far eccentric than what they just saw… If only I knew, their spouses were—/_

Sakura stopped her other train of thought and cursed herself inwardly for such judgmental ideas. She then nervously smiled at the perplexed shoppers,

"I—I w-was just trying to figure out the other things I need… I forgot my list," her smile turned into a nervous chuckle as she hurriedly went to aisle 27.

As she passed aisle 24, however, a particular product on the shelf made her stop and turn towards it.

_/What are we doing in the sweets aisle? And I thought we are supposed to buy the things we NEED/_

"I'm just here to look at something." Sakura was annoyed, her inner mind was in its super-ego mode today and she didn't like it one bit.

Her hand reached out and picked an aquamarine plastic box (which is as large as two matchboxes placed adjacent to each other). It contains 30 cool mint tablets, each the size of a rice grain, only 5 times thicker. Sakura continued to stare at the box in her hand, as she tried to bring an incident back to her memory.

_/Oh this…/_ the inner mind also remembered it, as if it happened only yesterday.

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"_Sakura-dear, can you please get me a bottle of liquid detergent? Mother seemed to forget to put one in our cart," Sakura's mother asked her daughter._

"_Yes, jounin-sama. Special ninja student Haruno Sakura will retrieve the cleaning potion right away!" Sakura rushed off to the detergents section._

_Her mother chuckled, "Make sure you come right away… I'm third in line for payment!"_

"_Your child sure dreams of becoming one great kunoichi, ne?" A neighbor, who happened to be shopping that day and was in the same line as Sakura's mother, commented._

"_Why yes, she sees the grocery store as part of her training ground. She said she trains her agility by getting the items as fast as she can, her strength by carrying heavy bags, and her intelligence by computing the cost of goods bought as well as by memorizing the locations of different grocery items… Sometimes I think she overdoes this shinobi dream…" Sakura's mother quite boasted. She never expected her daughter to be this fanatical over the shinobi lifestyle._

/There it is! Haha, 1/2 mission complete; well done, student./ _The 6 year-old inner mind commended her other self/_Now rush back and complete the mission on time./

"_Hai! Sakura was perked up and ran as fast as she can back to her mother. She darted pass different sections and made sharp turns every corner until she was on the main aisle and_

_CRASH!_

_She hit somebody and that kid fell on the floor. Sakura also fell on her butt; however the bottle slipped off her grasp, twisted a full 360 degrees in the air and fell to the ground in a resounding crash, causing a crack at the rear end of the plastic container and spilling the liquid detergent. The people turned around at the noise and a grocery employee approached the scene._

"_What happened here?" The man was irked._

"_Oh nothing. My girlfriend got involved in a little accident," the kid seemed older than her, about 12 or 11 years old. Sakura couldn't see him clearly as her held-back tears blurred her eyes._

/Girlfriend! Is that boy nuts/

_The boy continued to speak to the employee, "I'll pay for that bottle. Don't worry", then he turned to Sakura and helped her stand up "Just get another bottle. I'll be paying for the broken one."_

"_But…" she stammered_

"_A basic rule in the shinobi way is to surprise the enemy without falling trap to any of their schemes. You surprised me and caught me off balance. So consider my paying your bottle as my punishment."_

"_Punishment---It's l-like an effect of an offensive technique?"_

"_Yes, your technique" His charcoal eyes met her sea-green ones. _

_Sakura still bowed her head "But… I'm really sorry." _

"_Ooops. Shinobis do not regret their actions, but promise that they will never fall prey into the same mistake or technique again…" He patted her head, "Don't worry. Here, sweetie." _

_He caught her right hand and shoved in a small box of cool mint tablets, "take this, and don't cry now, okay?" And the boy quickly left with the employee._

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"Sakura-chan, if you really want that, we can buy it…" Kakashi's voice invaded her senses and brought Sakura back to the present. She then realized that she had been clutching the box tightly and intensely staring at it.

"Ah no, sensei. I just remembered something," She was about to return the box when Kakashi caught her hand and startled her.

"Ooops, don't. Just take it. I'll pay for it with my salary."

"Sensei I really…"

"A-aa," the index finger from his free hand swayed left to right, "You still haven't learned your lesson on punishments, ne?… Well then, just consider this as a gift from me."

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"_A basic rule in the shinobi way is to surprise the enemy without falling trap to any of their schemes. You surprised me and caught me off balance. So consider my paying your bottle as my punishment."_

"_Punishment?--- It's l-like an effect of an offensive technique?"_

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"Ah! You pervert! Why are you touching Sakura-chan!" Naruto dashed from the end of the aisle.

"It's about time you came back Naruto, we're about to pay."

"Sensei don't change the subject! Eh, but Sasuke's not here yet."

"Behind you, simpleton." Sasuke went pass Naruto and dumped his goods on their cart.

"Who are you calling—" an enraged Naruto was cut-off by Kakashi

"Stop that, we're paying now."

The four of them went in line for payment and loaded the goods on the cashier table. Then, the three genins passed the cashier and waited for their groceries to be billed and bagged. As the cool mint tablets got accounted for, Kakashi took the box and threw it in the air for Sakura to catch,

"There goes your mint, sweetie", Sakura blushed at the word sweetie while Sasuke just shrugged. She then placed the box inside her satchel.

"What's with him calling Sakura-chan 'sweetie'?" Naruto felt irritated and confused.

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"That'll be 4000, sir," the cashier announced.

"Okay, here's my credit card"

"I'm sorry sir, but these special jounin cards went offline as of 5 pm"

The time was 5:05.

"What!" Kakashi was horrified, "But you entered the goods and said nothing about offlines!"

"My apologies. But sir, you can still choose the things you really need from these bags and pay for them with cash."

"But we don't have—no. Never mind. We're not taking any of these. We wasted our time loading these goods into our cart and you're telling us that we can't get them all?" Kakashi's voice was overtly dramatic

"But sensei"

"No Naruto, these people must respect that we shinobis have pride." He was like auditioning for a movie.

"But no cash," Sasuke whispered.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------So the four of them left the grocery empty-handed, but full of thoughts. Sasuke thought about training while Naruto complained of his rumbling stomach, Kakashi wallowed in exaggerated self-pity and Sakura can't let go of the incidents that happened a while ago…

"Sensei… are you that boy from before?" She muttered in an inaudible whisper.

Until…

"Oh, hi team seven! And why is my sweetheart in such a bad mood?" Genma seemed to have sprouted from nowhere.

Kakashi pretended to look nonchalant, "Oh, it's you…Don't tell me you've developed a fancy for me… with all that 'sweetheart' terms and all"

"Silly. I'm not referring to you. I'm referring to this little girlfriend here. Something the matter, Sakura?" Genma smiled at her.

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…_his charcoal eyes meeting her sea green ones._

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"Genma…" Sakura was absent minded…

"Yes, sweetie?"

"Ah, Genma, if you don't mind… we're really off to a restaurant now. We have a reservation and we're quite hungry… We don't have time to fool around, see ya!" Kakashi pushed his students away at hasty speed and left the surprised senbon wielder behind.

"What's wrong with Hatake?" Genma said to himself, "It's really a wonder that those kids are able to put up with his quirky behavior."

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"What was that for? And I thought we didn't have enough money." Naruto can't help but ask

"His pride talking…" Sasuke responded

"What?"

"Kaka-sensei would not allow the whole Konoha to know that we don't have enough money to spend, aside from tonight's dinner. We don't get our mission bounty until tomorrow, so it means no lunch for us, stupid."

"But I'm H-U-N-G-R-Y!" Naruto's voice shagged Sakura from her introspective state and gave her an idea…

"Come on guys, cheer up! We can shop again tomorrow…" Sakura tried to lift her team's spirit up as they walked on the main road.

"Can you give me something to eat?" Naruto looked like he was about to die.

"Ah, here. Why don't we eat this to temporarily satiate our hunger?" She went and gave each of her teammates some of the cool mint tablets.

"Wow… you're so kind Sakura-chan…" The fox-child's eyes were big as saucers.

Kakashi sighed and ate.

"Lesser of two evils," Sasuke spoke and chomped on the tablets

Sakura smiled warmly…

…until she understood what Sasuke meant

"Oh, no!" She exclaimed as shock washed over her face. Realization set in her and she didn't know what to do.

"It was an accident." Sasuke answered for her; he then smirked while Kakashi heartily laughed.

"Hey, but I thought we weren't able to pay for any—" Naruto was the last one to notice…

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**Author's queries: **

Did you guys get it?

Do you think it makes sense if there's a sequel?

Let me know… (xx)v

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**June 7, 2006**

**5:55pm**

**revised: June 8, 2006**

**5:20pm**


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